[St. John's] Metro West End Development

[MrChills]

Paradise is a dump, and a perfect example of what happens to a town without any civic planning. The funny thing is that people started flocking there for cheap(er) houses than St. John's, but now the average price of a house in Paradise if more than St. John's.

I was born in Paradise and lived there for 10 years, back then it was a tiny little town that offered "around the bay" type living for people that wanted more land and privacy than what St. John's offered. I actually had a chance to purchase my childhood home a few years back, so my wife and tested out the drive a few days from St. Thomas line into the city, and as much as I would have loved to purchase the house, the first day I knew I would NEVER live in that place, what a mess.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by wrwalsh

Give me a grocery store, fire hall (something in the works), hockey arena (should be finished in 2 years), swimming pool and I'll have no other reason to travel on the east side of the ORR besides heading to MUN to work. Oh, maybe throw in a canadian tire too haha.

By the way those traffic lights (i'm assuming you mean the ones under the ORR on topsail rd) are gov of nl property unfortunatley.

Don't get me wrong, I love that you're happy where you are - I wish that for everyone. But I can't help but raise an eyebrow at:

"I'll have no other reason to travel on the east side of the ORR besides heading to MUN to work."

Even if that happens, you'll still be stuck in and part of exactly the traffic problem we're talking about, hehehe...

[wrwalsh]

Originally Posted by MrChills

Paradise is a dump.

I'd be upset too if I had to travel to alberta to work instead of driving 15-30 mins. To each their own I guess. I have lots of friends who love it.

I understand I (and 20K others) are part of the problem. Not many actually working in Paradise for sure. Hopefully a good solution will be found soon.

[ajcoffey]

West end school starting construction.
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...ol-site-work/1

[MrChills]

Originally Posted by wrwalsh

I'd be upset too if I had to travel to alberta to work instead of driving 15-30 mins. To each their own I guess. I have lots of friends who love it.

I understand I (and 20K others) are part of the problem. Not many actually working in Paradise for sure. Hopefully a good solution will be found soon.

If I had to travel to Alberta to work?

I live in Alberta, own a home here (8-10 minutes from my office), LOVE the province, and chose to live here, just like I chose to live and work in parts of the US, Ontario and Western Europe in the past.

I voluntarily left my job as Vice President of a reputable company in St. John's two years ago to take a position in Alberta that pays three times as much. Don't assume that everyone who moves to Alberta has to, or that everyone here is working a meaningless labour job.

I keep active on this board as I have investments in the province and own property in St. John's, and of course above all St. John's will always be considered home and I love the province.

Just because I think Paradise is a mess, doesn't make me upset. It's just a blunt (and I believe accurate) observation from someone who actually lived there for 10 years before it turned into the civic nightmare it is today.

[Arrakis]

Hopefully they will build the school faster than the sad replacement for the overpass in Paradise that they built. That took forever and in the end didn't address changing traffic flow or patterns.

Originally Posted by ajcoffey

West end school starting construction.
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...ol-site-work/1

[J_Murphy]

Originally Posted by ajcoffey

West end school starting construction.
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...ol-site-work/1

It also looks like the reconstruction of St. Theresas (not sure if they are staying with that name) on Mundy Pond Road is underway. Pomerleau are taking on the work.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

EDIT: I realize I may seem to react disproportionately to suburban sprawl but... we were, by North American standards, an exceptionally densely-populated small city. We boomed at a time when people already knew better than to construct what we now have in Mount Pearl, Paradise, and elsewhere. We squandered a chance to build a truly world-class small city, to put even Scandinavian planners to shame, and decided instead to erect the same shit mainland cities have been trying to CORRECT for two decades already. Instead of leading, we're still building, in 2013, what, when completed, will set us 20 years behind. It's an absolute disgrace. It's one of the biggest wasted opportunities in our island's history. I mean, our council still can't decide if new developments should be forced to have any ****ing trees. Come on, b'ys... pathetic.

I can agree with most of this except for mentioning Mount Pearl. If Mount Pearl were nowhere near St. John's it'd actually almost be a perfect city. It's very dense, has several commercial districts that aren't too far from a majority of the residential areas, and overall the road layout is much nicer than St. John's. There's a healthy High-Tech and scientific Industry that can most definitely be expanded upon. Its main fault is that it hinges on St. John's and hence becomes reliant. Take St. John's out of existence and then Mount Pearl becomes the almost ideal city. They'd have to build their own hospital and develop their own public transit (but can you imagine that public transit? It'd probably be heavenly!)

Paradise isn't even close to achieving this. There's some of that same high-tech industry, but not nearly the same amount. Paradise is pretty much all residential, with crumby road systems that were built for a town of 2000 people, not pushing 20,000.

[SignalHillHiker]

That's probably fair.

[tch1005]

The only issue with Mount Pearl, which could probably be worked on,
is there aren't enough links between North and South, pedestrian or otherwise, with only Donovan's, Commonwealth, and Dunn's Lane long distances apart.

1.a - If they were to extend Winston [Off Park] over the river to the base of Farrell Dr, it would make for a far more pedestrian friendly area.
Maybe connect it all the way down to Smallwood, and that'd be better

2 - Connect Roosevelt [Off Ruth] to Humber [Off Topsail]

Just ideas that would probably never happen, but who knows.

[christopher_chafe]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Yeah, the cure for that would have been to not build Paradise. Or to have built it smarter...

But you rushed to cash in on the boom by developing as many cookie-cutter subdivisions as you could, people were stupid enough to buy them, and now you get what was absolutely inevitable. Enjoy it. It's your new suburban lifestyle. And it's only going to get worse in the short term...

EDIT: I realize I may seem to react disproportionately to suburban sprawl but... we were, by North American standards, an exceptionally densely-populated small city. We boomed at a time when people already knew better than to construct what we now have in Mount Pearl, Paradise, and elsewhere. We squandered a chance to build a truly world-class small city, to put even Scandinavian planners to shame, and decided instead to erect the same shit mainland cities have been trying to CORRECT for two decades already. Instead of leading, we're still building, in 2013, what, when completed, will set us 20 years behind. It's an absolute disgrace. It's one of the biggest wasted opportunities in our island's history. I mean, our council still can't decide if new developments should be forced to have any ****ing trees. Come on, b'ys... pathetic.

Sorry but I have to disagree with what you are saying somewhat...... for the reason that we built what people wanted us to build. Residents were and still are afraid of change.

As for Mount Pearl......they are years ahead of where St. John's is as a city. As one poster put it, take St. John's out of the picture and Mount Pearl are almost an Ideal city (minus the hospital).

Not everything HAS TO LOOK iconic or European. IN fact I think that is one of the major problems we have here today, we want everything to look a certain way in design. What looks good in Europe will not necessarily look good over here and same goes with what looks good in Toronto will not always look good down here.

[SignalHillHiker]

Well, I much prefer the European look of old St. John's to Mount Pearl.

Mount Pearl, to me, looks like what it is - a generic suburb. Commonwealth Avenue is little more than a glorified highway truck stop - hideous buildings behind surface parking lots. Which shouldn't come as a surprise because that's basically what it is - a pit stop for commuters heading to St. John's. It could be absolutely anywhere - and I wish it was anywhere but here.

I think I agree with Marty that Mount Pearl and Paradise are two very different beasts - but I still think they're beasts.

If the architecture of homes in Mount Pearl wasn't so outdated, simple and cheap - and if the main commercial street had more street-front buildings and fewer front surface parking lots (not to mention a little more to offer than truck stop-type amenities), it could pass as a livable city to me.

But, as it is... nope. There's a reason Mount Pearl's own Santa Claus float shows his sleigh on top of colourful rowhouses. It sure as hell would look ugly as **** on a replica of Commonwealth Avenue.

But then... if you don't want to shop in a downtown that is less dense than Elizabeth Avenue, you can always get in your car and drive to the big box development on the fringes.

*Shudder*

[christopher_chafe]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Well, I much prefer the European look of old St. John's to Mount Pearl.

That's why nothing will please you if it's not European "enough".


And also if Mount Pearl looks like a generic suburb.....DT looks like a generic European area.

[Arrakis]

I would imagine it will be called something else other than St. Teresa's (correct spelling - everyone seems to misspell that) as the school is no longer run by the church so it would make sense to call it something else. Though I will be a little sad when they change the name as that's where I went to school as as child. Probably end up being called Mundy Pond Elementary or something like that.

Originally Posted by J_Murphy

It also looks like the reconstruction of St. Theresas (not sure if they are staying with that name) on Mundy Pond Road is underway. Pomerleau are taking on the work.

[tch1005]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfou...ments-205.html

[Townie709]

Paradise town council decided to partner with the St. John's Regional Fire Department instead of formulating a whole new fire department with CBS. Good move towards some sort of regional fire department that encompasses the whole metro region. Regional cooperation will be key in the coming years. If we can't have amalgamation, we are best off if we merge as many services as possible to make public service as efficient as possible. No official news articles online yet, I'm sure there will be in the morning

Good move Paradise, good move!

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Townie709

Paradise town council decided to partner with the St. John's Regional Fire Department instead of formulating a whole new fire department with CBS. Good move towards some sort of regional fire department that encompasses the whole metro region. Regional cooperation will be key in the coming years. If we can't have amalgamation, we are best off if we merge as many services as possible to make public service as efficient as possible. No official news articles online yet, I'm sure there will be in the morning

Good move Paradise, good move!

^ Agreed, regional cooperation is the way to go.

They will be building a brand new fire hall soon.

How was fire service provided prior to this move ?

Paradise will pay roughly $2.5 million per year for fire services.

"There will be a fire station built here in the town of Paradise staffed by 16 firefighters, 24 hours, and equipped with a pumper truck and another fire response truck," he said.

The St. John's Regional Fire Department serves St. John's and Mount Pearl, as well as neighbouring communities through support to volunteer and composite fire departments.

Wiseman said he doesn't see the decision as being the thin edge of a wedge that could lead to amalgamation with St. John's.

He hopes to have a sod turning ceremony for the new fire hall within a couple of months.

Source Article:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfou...tment-206.html

[jjavman]

Originally Posted by ajcoffey

West end school starting construction.
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...ol-site-work/1

I predict Condos in the old Booth School building !

[jeddy1989]

and here's an objection tot he hotel on Kenmount lol ... YES KEnmount road NIMBYs exist!!! :O

To
Thank you for returning my telephone call, I appreciate you explaining the process to me. I have
some concerns about the above noted amendment as I own the property directly behind this
area. My Building lot is on Old Pennywell Rd. I have been delayed building my home because of
the blasting with regards to the extension of The TEAM GUSHUE HIGHWAY I have spoken with
the city many times on this issue. my main concern with the above amendment is
considering the height elevation on old Pennywell Rd. when I build my home the people in
those hotel rooms. will be looking directly into my home. I do not feel anybody would feel that
is an acceptable situation. I would like council and planning to consider this when deciding if
this is to go forward.Also the noise levels in the area are going to be elevated because of the
new Highway and now you want to add another 360 cars in addition to the new Highway. I
(like everyone) have had to travel on Kenmount Rd. the amount of traffic is very high causing
bumper to bumper traffic jams If you add another 360 cars it is going to affect traffic flow it has
to. Thank you for considering
my objections

http://www.stjohns.ca/sites/default/...1%202013_0.pdf

[Copes]

Originally Posted by jeddy1989

and here's an objection tot he hotel on Kenmount lol ... YES KEnmount road NIMBYs exist!!! :O



http://www.stjohns.ca/sites/default/...1%202013_0.pdf

Reading through the minutes, I feel bad for the person looking to start an crafts class 6 times a month. The neighbours really don't support the small business.